Our work with Cheshire and Merseyside Health and Care Partnership to improve the remote management of patients with uncontrolled hypertension has been highly commended in the Innovate Awards.

NHS Confederation and the AHSN Network held the new Innovate Awards to celebrate excellence in innovation in health and care. Our digital transformation programme enabling at-home monitoring of blood pressure (BP) to help identify, triage and treat more patients was runner-up in the Enabling Safer Systems of Care Through Innovation award.

The Digital First Primary Care-funded ‘Hypertension Accelerator’ sites of Liverpool, Cheshire, and Wirral Places have been working collaboratively on the BP@Home approach. It supports General Practice to adopt innovation for delivering targeted, proactive, preventative BP care to those who need it most. It aims to empower patients to manage their health conditions at home.

Patient digital submission tools enable and support effective, low maintenance, and low cost direct data submission into General Practice, and ultimately the patient record and practice decision support systems.

Without the digital enablers, patients and practices rely on paper printouts, and average readings need to be calculated manually, increasing workload and scope for error or loss of results.

The digital enablement blueprint we developed is the first of its kind to improve remote management of patients in primary care settings. It is being shared via the FutureNHS online platform to support roll-out of remote monitoring for high blood pressure across England – and can be replicated to support other digital programmes.

Liverpool Heart and Chest Hospital, Innovation Agency North West Coast, The British Heart Foundation and Champs Public Health Collaborative were also involved in implementing the approach.

Debbie Bywater, NHS Midlands and Lancashire‘s Chief Information Officer, said: “We are delighted with this recognition of our collective efforts to use digital technology to drive the best healthcare outcomes for patients. This work is a good example of organisations across an integrated care system collaborating to produce great results.”